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“It’s over. This is it.”

Hostess Brands said Friday it has asked a court’s OK to liquidate the company, spelling the possible end for the iconic, yellow, cream-filled delight… CEO and chairman Gregory F. Rayburn told CNBC that he was hopeful the company could sell its brands. He told TODAY that the move was not a negotiating ploy. “It’s over. This is it,” he said…. “We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” said Rayburn. “The Board of Directors authorized the wind down of Hostess Brands to preserve and maximize the value of the estate after one of the company’s largest unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), initiated a nationwide strike that crippled the company’s ability to produce and deliver products at multiple facilities,” Hostess said in the statement.
In a statement, Hostess said its bakery operations have been suspended at all plants and that it would lay off most of its 18,500 workers to focus on selling its assets…including 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers.

The reason: insurmountable (and unfundable) difference in the firm’s collective bargaining agreements and pension obligations, which resulted in a crippling strike that basically shut down the company. In other words, Twinkies may well survive the nuclear apocalypse, but there was one weakest link: the company making them, was unable to survive empowered labor unions who thought they had all the negotiating leverage.

Now the Union Workers can chant another slogan: Ding Dong the Company’s Dead! This illustrates the basic and fundamental problem with so-called “Collective Bargaining,” which is that The Collective is a big, fat, panty-wetting, poo-flinging, idiot-baby.
If the employees of a company receive collective raises, those who are carrying the actual work-load and doing a superior job would be penalized, because the idiots and non-fireable morons would receive the SAME raises – which is one reason why Unions (Teachers, etc.) oppose any quantifiable measurement that is indicative of actual performance. In the name of “fairness” all the possible revues not stolen by Union Management that remain available for raises would be socialized amongst the weaker peers and they idiots would be told it’s because “Fairness” ??? This is where Socialism and Collectivism fails – there is no incentive for excellence or for a person to be a the top producer – except within the Union Oligarchy.
And then the Union Dues eat-up most of the raise that was collectively made available. Some people are so greedy they make themselves stupid.

40 years ago MAD magazine published a piece on fairy tales as told by certain interest groups. The Three Little Pigs was told by a union organizer. In the end, the factory was closed and everyone was broke and out of work. Motto: In Unions, ‘dere is strength.